Targeting the world

Globalisation is not a word that fits well with concerned consumers. It was apparent when I attended a forum on the fourth day of The American Food Revolution, held at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, where the future of farming was discussed. The eminent American, French and British panel managed to agree, more or less, that globalisation was not A Good Thing.

Afterwards, American chef Thomas Keller, of The French Laundry, cooked lunch (see review below).

Imagine how I felt when I read (not at Le Manoir) that MARC, The Marlon Abela Restaurant Corporation, was established in 2001 to create a global restaurant group dedicated to the high-quality market. Luckily, Marlon's definition of global turns out to be London, Paris and the USA. His first venture in London, which opened last week, is The Greenhouse.

Were I Marlon, I would have changed the name of this long-running restaurant, which has always disappointed and disillusioned by turning out not to be a greenhouse but a space at the base of a Mayfair apartment block.

True, you walk through a sort of garden to get to it, but the new regime has swathed that in decking which, as most of us know, is just so passé.

A recent David Collins interior has been extravagantly jettisoned and a safer, more beigey and blameless look installed. The excitement is not in art nouveau decorative objets behind glass, or even walnut timber flooring with oak coursing. It is on the plate.

This revelation dawned slowly as, at the start, I did not feel entirely at one with Marlon's brand and his global expansionist aims. The £55 three-course menu sporting various foams, a few jus and several supplements (up to £15 for the whole Scottish lobster) just reads like another expense-account menu for the overprivileged.

A fact from The American Food Revolution discussions: "The average US citizen spends $5.80 a day on food in and out of the house and only one per cent of that is ever spent in a fine restaurant." The sums are probably much the same here.

First off, a little array of scones, flavoured with ham, with herbs, with cheese, had scant talent to amuse. Better were crisps made from Brittany blue potatoes and a cube of glazed meat - the waiter said pork, I thought brisket - on an onion purée, but best of all was a little cup of parsley soup. It had that wonderful, cut-grass quality of parsley, its meadowy scent, and suddenly it boded well.

Fresh expectations were met with the open lasagne of Cornish crab with crab bisque and salsify foam. The spectral flavour of salsify lends itself to foaming and the flavour and texture of the crab were sweetly right - a luscious dish.

My initially cautious decision to choose the set-lunch menu at £28 for two courses was rewarded with a tomato tarte fine that was a light and clever assembly of blanched, peeled tomatoes on paper-thin pastry with crescents of raw baby tomato and tiny bombs of deep-fried goat's cheese sprinkled with sesame seeds.

The main course of fillet of cod with saffron-and-mussel broth followed on beautifully and delicately.